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Role of Enterprise Strategy
Successful companies are those that focus their
efforts strategically. Strategy should be a stretch
exercise, not a fit exercise.
To meet and exceed
customer satisfaction, the
business team needs to follow an overall organizational strategy. A
successful strategy adds
value for the targeted customers over the long run
by consistently meeting their needs better than the competition does.
Strategy is the way in which a company orients
itself towards the market in which it operates and
towards the other
companies in the marketplace against which it competes. It is a plan an
organization formulates to gain a sustainable advantage over the
competition. The central strategic issue: why different companies, facing
the same environment, perform differently.
Strategy answers the following questions:
-
what are the sources of the company's
sustainable competitive advantage?
-
how a company will
position
itself against competition in the market over the long run to secure a
sustainable competitive advantage?
-
what are the key strategic priorities?
Strategy
is an agreed-on guide to action that should lead business to success in the
marketplace by satisfying customer needs better than the competition does.
Strategy formulation is the major task for the
company entrepreneur and CEO, but it is the task of middle managers and
project managers to
carry this strategy out and turn it into results.
Strategic Leadership
As a
strategic leader your prime responsibility is to ensure
that your organization is going in the right direction. To be able to
identify the right strategy and pursue it to the desired result, you need to
master two important functions: strategic thinking and
strategic planning.
Ten Major Schools of Strategic Management
Ten deeply embedded, though quite narrow, concepts typically
dominate current thinking on strategy. These range from the early Design and
Planning schools to the more recent Learning, Cultural and Environmental
Schools8... More
New Approaches to
Strategy
Formulation
The currently dominant view of strategy is the
resource-based
theory. Traditional strategy models, such as
Michael Porter's
five forces model, focus on the company's external competitive environment.
Most of them do not attempt to look inside the company. In contrast, the
resource-based perspective highlights the need for a fit between the
external market context in which a company operates and its internal
capabilities.
According to this view, a company's competitive advantage
derives from its ability to assemble and exploit an appropriate combination
of resources.
Sustainable competitive advantage is achieved by continuously developing existing and creating
new resources and capabilities in response to rapidly changing market
conditions.
In relation to
the 10 traditional approaches, today, strategy formulation should also be a combination of
them - judgmental designing, intuitive
visioning, and emergent learning; it should be about transformation as well
as perpetuation; it has to involve individual cognition and social
interaction, co-operative as well as conflictive; it must include analyzing
before and programming after as well as negotiating during; and all of this
must be in response to what can be a demanding environment.8
Blue Ocean Strategy:
6 Principles
Blue ocean strategy is about
revolutionary
value innovation.
The six principles drive the successful
formulation and
execution of
Blue Ocean Strategy.
These principles attenuate the six risks...
More
Balanced Organization:
5 Basic Elements
Empowered
Employees (Metal):
Building Your
Sustainable
Competitive Advantage
Sustainable competitive advantage is the prolonged benefit of
implementing some unique value-creating strategy based on unique
combination of internal organizational
resources
and
capabilities
that cannot be replicated by competitors...
More

SWOT Analysis:
Questions To Answer
-
What is your
strongest business asset?
-
What
unique resources do you have?
-
What do you offer that makes you
stand out from the rest?...
More
Your
Strategic Intent
Strategic
intent is a high-level statement of the means by which your organization
will achieve its
vision. It is a core component of your
dynamic strategy. Strategic
intent cannot be planned all in advance. It must evolve on the basis of
experience during its implementation... More
Market Leadership Strategies
The market leader
is dominant in its industry and has substantial market share. If you want to
lead the market, you must be the industry leader in developing new business
models and new products or services. You must be on the cutting edge of new
technologies and innovative business processes. Your customer value proposition
must offer a superior solution to a customers' problem, and your product must be
well differentiated ...
More

Case
in Point
7-Part Competitive
Strategy of Microsoft
Although Bill Gates, Founder of
Microsoft, built his empire on technological products, his business
mastery is even more important than his technical skills, and his
competitive urge is a huge driving force.
The early success of Microsoft was founded on
the company's 7-part competitive strategy...
More
Your
Innovation Strategy
The innovation portfolio provides
visibility that allows your firm pace the introduction of new products and
services.
You should balance the introduction of
revolutionary products with
incremental improvements in others so as to maintain a steady flow. By
having a comprehensive view of your initiatives over time, you can avoid
either overwhelming or underwhelming the marketplace.
3 Primary Criteria to Assess
Your Innovation Portfolio
Besides assessing each initiative
individually for risk, investment, return, and timing, assess your
total portfolio to ensure that you have the right initiatives in it:
-
Stretch
and strategic fit.
How much does your portfolio push the industry frontiers, and
how well does it fit with your business goals and
strategy?
...
More
Case in Point
Silicon
Valley Companies:
Deciding If Your Innovation Portfolio Has Enough
Stretch
Adapted from
Relentless
Growth, Christopher Meyer
-
Balance between revolutionary and
evolutionary initiatives. First, Silicon Valley companies assess the
overall balance between
revolutionary and evolutionary projects. The ultimate arbitrator of
portfolio stretch if the innovation leaders’ judgment, experience,
intuition, and luck...
More

Jokes
The
Owl and the Field Mouse
A little field-mouse
was lost in a dense wood, unable to find his way out. He came upon a wise
old owl sitting in a tree. "Please help me, wise old owl, how can I get out
of this wood?" said the field-mouse.
"Easy," said the owl,
"Grow wings and fly out, as I do."
"But how can I grow
wings?" asked the mouse.
The owl looked at him
haughtily, sniffed disdainfully, and said, "Don't bother me with the
details, I only advise on strategy."
New Goals for
Strategic Planning...
Strategy
Management...
Changing Strategic Direction...
Practicing Balanced Approach to Achieve
Strategy...
Differences between
Strategic Management and Classic Managerial Functions...
Creating
an Enterprise Strategy...
Two Interwoven Parts of
the Strategic
Achievement...
Does Your Organization
Struggle with Maintaining Strategic Focus?...
Strategy
Programming...
Brand Vision...
Strategy
Innovation: Evolution of a
Successful Strategy...
Dynamic
Strategy
as a Source of
Sustainable Competitive Advantage...
Strategic Thinking...
Strategic Learning...
Developing
Strategic
Market Focus...
Implementing Strategy through
Projects...
Strategy Map Development for a Start-Up Venture
(sample)...
Formulation is Easy, it
is
Implementation that is the Problem...
Business Portfolio Analysis...
Milestone-based Thinking...
FutureStep – a New Strategic
Management Process...
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